Knowledge about deadly poisonous
weapons lies hidden in the Internet. On the twentieth of
January 2000, the US Energy Minster revealed in a written
response to Tara Thornton, of the environmental group
"Military Toxins Project" that "One would
have to assume depleted uranium includes traces of
plutonium."

The usual argument that the depleted
uranium munitions used by the US army are harmless has
been set aside by the Energy Department: "The
biggest health concerns are about the uranium itself, not
about the traces of plutonium." The U.S. militarys
Radiobiological Scientific Institute is even clearer:
"A thorough study shows overwhelming evidence that
the risks of cancer are increased through DU."

These documents are on the Internet.
They would have driven Defense Minister Rudolph Scharpings
experts into a rage, had they but known of their
existence, but until recently hardly anyone in the
Defense Ministry had an Internet connection.

The information coming in from the
Internet is alarming. When a DU projectile hits a target
not only is poisonous, weakly radiating uranium oxide
released. Now, for the first time, we are aware that it
is mixed with plutonium particles, which means almost
certain death when they are introduced into the human
body through the lungs or open wounds.

The extremely poisonous pollution
results from the fact that the Americans get the depleted
uranium for their weapons from the reprocessing of
reactor fuel contaminated with plutonium, which radiates
57,000 times more strongly than DU, destroying the body.

Just how dangerous the US military
considers its DU weapons is revealed by the warnings it
has issued for handling victims of contamination.
Examining the huge collection of files and electronic
data stored at his Berlin Information Center for
Transatlantic Security (BITS), the arms critic Otfried
Nassauer discovered the fact that uranium munitions were
used in Somalia, East Africa, a fact that was unknown
until now.

In a telex sent to US troops in
Mogadishu in October 1993, Washington warned U.S. medics
that they might encounter soldiers "who had had
unusually high levels of contact with depleted uranium."
The stuff had to be poisonous; otherwise why the warning?

In their instructions, the military
stated that with "normal handling" of DU
munitions "no medical problems are to be expected."
Nor were problems to be expected from "unusual
contact."

But the instructions expose this as a
cover-up, for they go on to say that special treatment
should be given to all soldiers who "inhaled DU
dust, whose wounds were contaminated with DU dust or
particles," "who had been near the smoke"
coming from burning vehicles and depots in which DU
ammunition was stored, or who worked "in an
environment contaminated by DU dust or by the aftermath
of a DU fire." Also everyone who entered a "building
or vehicle that was hit with a DU shell."

Extensive tests and urine samples were
to be arranged for such soldiers. The packing
instructions for these urine samples are almost funny,
given that DU supposedly poses no threat:

Every urine sample was to be
"sealed in an absolutely solid, 1 liter,
sealed container".

This was to be placed in a second,
"similarly watertight container," in
which there was to be "sufficient absorbent
material to suck up the entire urine sample were
it nevertheless to leak."

This package was to be placed in a
"heavy duty cardboard box" swathed in
warning labels proclaiming: "Biohazard!"

While Washington warned its own
soldiers about these health risks they didnt bother
to inform UN personnel about the dangers, not to mention
other peacekeepers let alone the native population.

General A. D. Helmut Harff, at that
time assigned to Somalia and later Commander of the
German forces in Kosovo, insists that "no word came
to us [about DU], neither from the Americans nor from the
Homeland."

Also before and during the invasion of
Kosovo, uranium was "never a topic among Commanders."

His assertion casts doubt on a note
dated 14th of June 1999, which [Defense
Minister] Scharping now proudly displays as evidence that
the [German] troops were always kept "fully informed."
On page 3 of a 17 page Order of the Day, this note
devotes all of six lines to the "possible dangers"
of Du ammunition. This is squeezed between paragraphs
concerning the prioritization of daily reports and
defective coffee machines.

Meanwhile, Scharping complained
bitterly about U.S. information policy and called the U.S.
envoy in, for talks. The envoy appeared supportive, but
an assistant Minister summarized: "The Americans dont
give a damn." Meaning they believed the hysteria in
Germany would soon die down.

While the Defense Minister can blame
the bigger power for Somalia, theres another
problem that is probably going to give him a lot of
difficulty.

Last week, Der Spiegel
published a report concerning 149 incidents involving DU
during the period from 1989 to the beginning of 2000. The
German Defense Ministry is aware of all these incidents;
our [i.e., 'Der Spigel's'] report was based on a
confidential Ministry record, which had two handwritten
notes on the cover:

One of the notes, to Assistant Minister
Dr. Wichert, definitely deserves praise: "This
project was a challenge and we carried it out in what one
would hope was the shortest possible time."

The reason for this haste could have
been a PDS-organized [the PDS is the successor to the
East German Communist Party] parliamentary inquiry.
Perhaps there was a special reason for rushing, as well.
On March 20, 2000, the Army high command announced that
three soldiers were suffering from high blood counts that
"could very possibly be due to radioactivity."

The reply on the cover [written by Dr.
Wichert, apparently] is even more explosive: "This
was most necessary! Many thanks. The Luftwaffe also
shoots this stuff!" Didnt this highest ranking
Defense Ministry bureaucrat know what the troops do? Or
perhaps he knew more about it than his own Minister?

The previous week, Scharping had
publicly assured Parliament and the Public that the
German Army never possessed DU munitions.

The poisonous stuff has undoubtedly
been exploded on German soil. At the end of the week the
Munitions Company Rheinmetall admitted they tested DU
ammunition in lower Saxony in the beginning of the 1970s.
A Göttinger Professor reported to "Der Spiegel
that Rheinmetall "had offered in 1972-1973 to let
him observe test firing of different projectiles that had
been manufactured by the company from depleted uranium."
In the Upper Bavarian town of Schrobenhausen the
munitions company MBB tested DU ammunition for 17 years,
until 1996.

On Friday, Scharping received from the
headquarters of the US Army in Germany a promise to
follow up on 9 incidents between 1981 and 1990 in which
the insidious DU ammunition could have been used: Tanks
with DU shells were burned up in bases or training areas,
DU ammunition was fired.

But the list of these incidents was not
so new. It has been languishing since August 1996 in the
Ministry of Defense in Bonn.